The Regulation of Religion by Secular Work Practice: Exploring Muslim Employees’ Performance of Religious Practice

Abstract

Adopting a practice lens, this study contributes to debates on the reproduction of religious inequalities in the workplace by going beyond the literature's dominant focus on the role of discourse in the regulation of employees’ religion. Drawing on interviews with Muslim employees in Belgium, this study offers a practice-based theorization of religious inequality at work, focusing on the role of the rhythms, objects, spaces, and bodies of work practice in the regulation of religion and on religious employees’ different performances directly negotiating these aspects of work practice. Based on this practice-based understanding, we identify contributions to several debates on religion at work. First, we show the role of work practice in imposing a secular order that selectively embraces cultural and religious practices that have historically dominated the Global North. Second, we add to studies on Muslim employees by showing how solely focusing on Islamophobic discourses and discursive practices overlooks the interplay between these discourses and work practice in the regulation of religion and Muslim employees’ negotiation of the rhythms, objects, spaces, and bodies of work practice. Third, contributing to debates on (in)visibility, we expose that the (in)visibility of religion is shaped by its relation to work practice and that religious employees can negotiate work practice through invisibly performing religious practice. Fourth, adding to our understanding of the inclusion of religious employees, we emphasize the importance of the flexibility of work practice and the role of other employees in enabling religious employees to better align work and religious practice.